New Brunswick Accident

My thoughts are with the family, crew and passengers. I was on a train that hit someone that committed suicide years ago and it defintely stays with you. Not sure if what happened at New Brunswick was a suicide or not but any train vs pedestrian fatality is traumatic. When I used to take the train years ago I usually would keep my distance from the platform edge.

I haven't seen any reports yet as to the direction in which the man was looking -- was he by any chance looking eastward at something and had no idea the approaching train was on Track 1? There have been videos of railfan photographers who nearly bought it under those circumstances because they were so wrapped up in what they were shooting they forgot that there might be another train close by. I would think that if he were looking westward and not intent on suicide he would have involuntarily stepped back in time to avoid being hit.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pd6maEpbzDg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; this video comes to mind.

Just what I was thinking of -- I'm sure it happens a lot. Imagine what was probably going through that engineer's mind -- and possibly still is.

Years ago I was handing out 19 orders on the track 3/4 platform at Penn station, Newark, when a woman hopped off onto track four in front of an approaching MU. She landed in the trough between the rails and the train went over her with out touching her. They took her to the hospital anyhow, I guess, to check her head.
More recently, a woman in Morristown went under a departing train, and was chopped into four pieces, like any animal. I called it in to the police, but didn't take a close look at her. I'm nearsighted, asked one of the cops who had been closer, if it was a human being. I had seen her earlier in the waiting room, dressed in black.
I was working first trick at Hunter tower in 1972 when the previous night a drunk had come along, and sat down on track four. The cleanup crew did an imperfect job, and the next morning the maintainer was taking pieces of him out of the switch.
Of course, in the Pennsy days, there was a funeral train, I think for Bobby Kennedy, that made a stop at some place like Linden, (I forget where,) and people came on the tracks to be near it. I guess they figured there was safety in numbers, but they were wrong. This was before the days of radios, and a freight train came along and ran many of them down.
We had an electrician at Hack tower who stepped onto the track in front of a PATH train and froze.
I remember, in the early 1970s, a worker in Journal Square wedged him self into the third rail with a crow bar. I heard that it was the second such fatality in the history of the H&M. You think nothing of stepping over the third rail. I can think of another fatality though, when an H&M train passed a stop signal at Dock, with the bridge up. The operator got the bridge down low enough to catch the train. They figured a handle over his head had come off, and knocked the motorman out.
I've come close to (inadvertently) being chopped up several times myself, "working on the railroad" or getting off a moving train wrong.
I knew a priest in Jersey City years ago who had to go into rail yards to give last rights to men killed there; grim job.
The father of one of the guys I was in the army with was a fireman on the Pennsy, and lost his legs getting on or off a GG1 in Sunnyside yard.

That YouTube at Harper's Ferry is good. The dummy woke up just in time. The ad is good too.

Looks to be not an accident, which makes me feel worse for the true victims who were traumatized by this person's actions.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?secti ... id=9479734" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you for the information. I was wondering what kind of debris injured the people on the platform.

NJT4272 wrote:
Please.......... New Brunswick needs to be smote like Sodom and Gomorrah. You'll not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in the universe..... well except for maybe Camden or Detroit....

Wow, can you tell us how you really feel???

Please.......... New Brunswick needs to be smote like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Must be a nice place. I think I'll move there.

"I've seen a lot of misconceptions created due to shoddy reporting on this incident - television talking heads questioning "why was an express train on the local track?". Obviously, we all know that this is a regular occurance, and this whole thing could have been avoided if the guy took two seconds to read and follow the instructions right at his feet: "STAND BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE"."

"Of course, thoughts go out to all involved, especially those innocent bystanders that were hit and the train crew."

TAMR and Everyone: I saw myself some of the reports of this incident and do fully understand from past visits to NBK that nonstop trains can and do
use the two outer tracks - and I remember that there was a sign that lights up along with an audible warning "Train Approaching - Please Stand Back"
that was near the S (depot) end of the platform on the NWK and NYP bound side...If you are on the north/east end of that platform you can't see too
far S because of the curve there - sight lines are better on the TRE bound side...

I will add that I will always stand back on a platform as a train approaches primarily because I like to read engine and car numbers on trains and that
by standing too close this is less possible not even counting the obvious safety factor...that I do feel that some riders do not take seriously enough...

MACTRAXX

These incidents are what leads NJT and others to crack down on "tresspassers" (read that railfans too). I personally saw an incident a few years back where kids thought it would be cool to play chicken with a NS train. They weren't yucking it up when the cops came in and questioned them. Apparently the NS engineer called it in.
We have had more than our share of train/human incidents here in P'burg. Most involved alcohol and/or drugs.In one case a woman got up form the track but reached back to get her 40 and got it in the head from the steps of the engine. Others were sleeping(it off) in the middle of the tracks. I always have an apprehension when I film trackside and pedestrians/tresspassers are near. You just never know. Same goes for crossings. Do I have an escape route if some idiot drives into the path of the train?

CNJ Fan 4evr wrote:These incidents are what leads NJT and others to crack down on "tresspassers" (read that railfans too). I personally saw an incident a few years back where kids thought it would be cool to play chicken with a NS train. They weren't yucking it up when the cops came in and questioned them. Apparently the NS engineer called it in.
We have had more than our share of train/human incidents here in P'burg. Most involved alcohol and/or drugs.In one case a woman got up form the track but reached back to get her 40 and got it in the head from the steps of the engine. Others were sleeping(it off) in the middle of the tracks. I always have an apprehension when I film trackside and pedestrians/tresspassers are near. You just never know. Same goes for crossings. Do I have an escape route if some idiot drives into the path of the train?

Couple or so years ago on a day I was brakeman on the BR&W northbound as we rounded the curve to the Everitt Road grade crossing, lo and behold there was a large street motorcycle parked in the gauge with the rider scrambling on to move it. He apparently had stopped to check something on the bike and when the lights/bell came on and heard our horn realized that the location was not particularly favorable to his purpose. The engineer and I were just shy of dumping the air when he moved off. Passenger track speed is only 15 mph and we would have stopped in time, but that speed the stop could have caused any standing passenger or crew to lose their balance. The cyclist's two friends reacted with some amusement once they saw that he was clear, and the culpable biker had a very embarrassed look. Odds are he will never stop on or near a track again. We do get occasional trespassers walking along the tracks, and since steam started running again many more trackside photographers. Most have enough sense to stay far away, but I've seen a couple who stood in the gauge to get a direct down the track shot. Common sense sometimes is not all that common.

Back to NJT, it's not infrequently that I've noted passengers on the yellow portion with no more than 6 inches of clearance on Newark Penn Track 5 at the east end as the RVL train pulls in a relatively high speed at that point. I always stand well back and face the train, ingrained in me at safety classes at BR&W I suppose.

One big snow storm a few years ago, the railroad hadn't shoveled off the high level platforms here at Middletown. The snow was deep on the platform, so folks were walking on the yellow edge where it wasn't as deep, except me. I plowed through the deep stuff, well away from the edge.

CNJ Fan 4evr wrote: Apparently the NS engineer called it in.
We have had more than our share of train/human incidents here in P'burg.

I think any engineer will call it in these days. Anyone with a scanner can verify that.
I'll tell you a story about the Pennsy in Pburg (NJ) during the depression. The kids would holler obscenities at the engine crews, and the firemen would throw pieces of coal at them. The kids would take the coal home to heat their homes and cook with. That was a practice in a lot of places.